Who benefits?

 After two tours, which both included traveling on part of the Maya Route, but where very different to guide, I think I have enough information to write a new story. Again it will not really be about my/our experience, but rather about information, impressions and feelings. As a point of view I will use the title: ‘Who benefits’, because the answer to this question is not always clear and often interesting. Like in Mexico City, where they introduced a new elektric bus system. This is great for the invironment, but at the moment not so great for the drivers of the small mini vans. A lot of them are about to lose their job and I think that it will take some time before they can really apusiate the benefits of the (hopefully) cleaner air in Mexico City.

Another example comes from the first of these two tours I guided. It is sold as a ‘Kids Tour’ for families who want to travel with children. It was a short tour of only two weeks, but with a filled program and lots of things to see and do. The program was suppose to be adjusted to the needs of children. There were two more hotels with swimming pools, we had the option to see lots of elegant pink flamingos in Chelestun and we went to the beautiful Laguna Bacalar with crystal clear fresh swimming water in many blue colors. It was like a small paradise on the Mexican coast, but did the children, or in this case teenagers, had the same feeling about this all? The swimming option and the beach were the most welcome to these teenagers during the flamingo tour, two out of the five preferred to sleep out instead of joining a boat tour over laguna Bacalar and one of them already asked a few days ago at what time they would arrive back home.

The long bus rides during the tour made them tired and after Chichen Itza and Uxmal, they finally saw their change in skipping to have to walk over the site of Palenque.

So why selling special tours for kids? In who´s benefit is this? I think the agencies are exploring new markets and parents like the option of being able to travel around (again) even with their children.

I think it is great to be able to travel around with children and learn them about different place and cultures in the world, but maybe those children who really do like this, don´t need  special tours. I remember for example a normal tour in Ecuador with a family with two teenagers who were even younger than the ones in my last tour. We had no swimming pools at our hotels, but these kids were really interested in all those new things around them. They learned a lot during this tour and went back home with a great experience and lots of stories to tell their friends.

Why travelling around with private busses instead of public busses and sleep in more luxury hotels with sometimes a lesser location or atmosphere? Is this because it gives a better service? At first I would say yes. It makes the journeys shorter, it usually makes you more flexible, there is less need in carrying your bags around and watching your belongings. But now, look at it from a different point. Why are you travelling? Is it because you only want to see a lot or also because you want to experience what it is to be in another country? For some people the first option is enough, but for those who want to get more out of their vacation than only nice pictures, travelling only with private transport and staying in more luxury hotels can be less interesting and adventures. Ad to this that with my last two groups we didn´t have enough people to make it affordable to have a big bus so most of the time we had to travel around in small uncomfortable mini vans. Could this service really not be any better? For some people and parts of the route a partly public bus service could have been a nicer and more comfortable option. Some people would have preferred it if some hotels would have been a bit cheaper, but with more charm. Others just needed a bigger bus and luxury rooms. The problem with these options is that a public bus is cheaper for an agency to use, but more difficult to sell and charm full rooms depend on taste.

Using big busses for small groups will mean that the people would have to pay more. More expensive tours are also less attractive to sell/buy. So there is no real winning situation or best option, things just depend a lot on how the people are informed.

I´m affright that the same counts for the current situation in Honduras, the second poorest country of the Americans. Listening to the news and looking at the images it is almost like a civil war is going on in this country. But looking closer it strikes me that most of the information isn´t objective. Most news networks seem to forget this very basic rule of broadcasting news. Look for example at the images of CNN, they only show the supporters of the ex President Zelaya who are fighting in the streets full of policemen with heavy guns. They ‘forget’ to show the images of the peaceful protesters, they forget to show the images of the people who agree with the so called ‘coup’. They forget to mention that so far (14-8-2009) only one person died in these protests and that it might not be a real coup anyway, because the army relived the president from its duty only after he violated the law.

Some short facts: President Zelaya wanted to hold a referendum to try to pass a law which would make it possible to be reelected, something which normally isn´t possible in Honduras. The Honduran law says that this isn´t allowed within 180 days before the elections (in November) and for sure not without the approval of the Congress. Zelaya ordered his military commander not to listen to the congress and to start with the logistics for this referendum. This commandant refused and got fired. Then the president himself decided to lead the logistics and distribute the voting machines and documents for his referendum. A small detail in this is that these materials were delivered by Venezuela. After he told the Supreme Court that he would continue doing his illegal referendum, they saw no other option than to order the army to relive the president from his duty and establish a temporarily president until the elections in November.

On the internet there is now a whole discussion going on about the ability of a Supreme Court to send away a democratically chosen president. Innocent until proven guilty, or democracy above the law. Besides ‘who is right or wrong’, how do you get rid of a democratically chosen president who is not accepted anymore, but refuses to resign? A few years ago he won the elections only with a very small difference and he now lost support from the Congress, the Supreme Court, the electoral tribunal, the army, the Church and according to some numbers, more than 60% of the Honduran citizens. Even his own party in congress supported a resolution to investigate if president Zelaya is mentally unfit to remain in office. If democracy is about the will of the majority, it seems to me that the ‘coup’ in Honduras was a very democratic decision of the Honduran people and the rest of the world should accept this.

So why so many negativity about this? I understand that bad news sells better, so networks make more money telling about a violate coup in a ‘Banana republic’ instead of with telling about a maybe strange, but yet legal move in a democratic country.

I also understand that Chávez doesn´t like his ‘friend’ to be removed, because apparently he was planning to build an oil refinery plant in Honduras, which would make him more independent from the USA.

But what about the rest of the world? Why their concern about this Hondurian move? How is it in their benefit to complain about this Hondurian decision? Why is it in their benefit that Copan is losing almost 90 % of its tourists? Is it because of the misinformation that the news networks spread around? Or do they have other reasons to complain about Hondurian politics?

It is already proven that rich countries above all try to support their own economy, which sound only natural to me. Its human to always first protect yourself and after think about others. I do the same myself. The only thing I don´t like is why lots of people deny this and pretend to be better then the rest.

The church is better, because they believe in God and help the poor. But the only help the poor if they also want to believe in their God, so if their God gets more supporters and more power.

Governments of rich countries pretend to help the poor countries by sending them money.

However they also take advantage of the poor countries with unfair commercial laws, and using their cheap labor. Big companies (for example Nike, Levis, Diesel, H&M, but also big agriculture companies) in rich countries use cheap labor in countries where salaries are very low and were they pay less taxes to manufacture expensive products. They sell these products in their own country where their own government ads a tax. to it and every-one wins. Everyone? Well, the company gains more, because they can manufacture trousers for 20 Euro and sell them for 120 Euro, the government of the rich country receives extra taxes, and the costumer is happy because they still pay less for the product then when it is manufactured in a western country. This same costumers complains when they go travelling and have to pay 5 US$ more for a hammock in a third world country, while other group members bought it for 25 US$. Lets assume this time that this 25 US$ was a fair price in comprehension to the necessary materials and labor, what about the price difference between 20 Euro manufactory costs in a poor country and 120 Euro selling price in a rich country? Who are the big losers in this story, the ribbed off tourist/costumer or the inhabitants of the poor country?

To compensate for their unfair behavior on the world market the rich countries decided to just give away a certain percentage of their national income to the poor. The problem with giving something for nothing is that you also take away the motivation of the poor people to try to work harder and earn more. If they work hard and get competitive with companies in rich countries, they get punished by new tax regulations and if they sit still they get money for doing nothing. Of course they do have to behave well according to the countries who give the money. So again, in who´s benefit is it to give money to these poor countries?

As if this isn´t enough poor countries also serve in the need of some rich people who want to feel good or buy off their sin for keeping these countries poor. Some of these people like to give away money to poor people in return of getting a statue (Rotary Club) and taking a picture of themselves with this statue.

Other so called ‘Help Organizations’ seem to think that they are the best and need more help than others. Instead of working together to help the poor, they often compete in trying to get more members and money, so THEY can help the poor and feel good about it. In who´s benefit is this ‘competition’?

A lot of things in the world are connected to the search for more money and/or power. Luckily there are also organizations and people with a different motivation. Organizations like Merazonia and the Via Via in Copan are just some examples, but I´m sure there are more. You know already about the difficulties of Merazonia, but also the people of Via Via need a lot of patience and positive strength to continue their good work. To give you another example of how difficult it can be to try to do something ‘good’. One of the owners of Via Via told me that about 6 years ago they hired a shy girl to help cleaning their restaurant. It turned out that she is a smart girl so she climbed her way up in the restaurant and organization of Via Via. Now she does the daily management of the connected travel agency and earns 3 times the minimum salary. A happy end? I thought so, until I heard that she lost most of her (poor) friends, because they think that she belongs now to a different class. Her family keeps asking money from her and she often has arguments with her husband, because in Honduras it isn´t ‘normal’ that a women earns more than her husband. The word ‘happy’ suddenly has a bitter taste…

Yep, we are all human, we all have our own reasons for doing things, lets just be honest about it. Tour companies want to earn money, churches want to gain more souls and power, most ‘help organizations’ and volunteers help others so they can feel good about it, rich countries want to stay rich and most rich people don´t want help others if this means that they too become poor. If anyone disagrees with this, please let me know.

Leaves me only telling you about my motivation in live, using examples from my last tours. Why did I supported my group members in their complains against the agency I work for? Why do I regularity bite the hand that feeds me? It doesn´t earn me more money or power, in fact I got even banned out of South America by my agency for complaining too much. I now got less tours and it even seems that I only get the small groups.

However after the Kids Tour I got a relatively big tip in comprehension to the small group. This was partly because I put a lot of effort in trying to get them better transportation. I already tried this before we saw even the bus, because I already expected problems. But the agencies said that this transport is what is paid for, so case closed. It is a shame for the group, but if the agency had sent a better bus before the group had seen it, I would probably have received less tip…

Even for my second group, which was more difficult to guide, because the people had very different interests and expectations, I put a lot of effort in trying to get the best (bus)services. My agencies seem not so happy with me anymore, but the ‘worst’ was the comment I received yesterday from some group members when I asked them to fill in a written complain about the uncomfortable bus. After their complains (and even some curses) and my effort during the tour, they now said that it wasn´t too bad after all? When I also heard that they had complained about some of our group members towards the group members of another tour agency and not towards the persons in question, I was about to skip our last dinner together. But alright, maybe I shouldn´t make things worse on our last night and just see what happens. It luckily turned out a fun night and if it was real or not, it seemed a good end of a rare tour. People are strange creatures, which keeps my job interesting and challenging.

I like challenges, I like to get the best out of myself and out of others, but I also like honesty. I complain about bad service, I try to kick the agencies who lie to me, but when they´re honest and reliable they can always count on me. The more honest and open people are the more I can and will do for them. I´m not always the easiest person to go around with, because of my stubbornness, I don´t keep a close contact with friends, but when they need me, I´m there for them. I don´t live for money, power and fake friendships, challenges, fairness, real live and real friends are much more important to me.

Martijn

P.s. More pictures in my Photo Album!